Nelson Deputy Inducted into Ferrum Football Hall of Fame

More than 35 years after winning a national championship with his team, a Wingina
man has been inducted into the Ferrum College Football Hall of Fame.

Vasco Wright, who has worked as a deputy with the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office since
1991, attended Ferrum College from 1973-75 and was part of the football team that
won the Junior College Athletic Association Football Championship in 1974.

On Oct. 5, all members of the 1974 team were inducted into the Hall of Fame during
a ceremony held at the college.

Wright said he wasn’t expecting the announcement of his election to the hall, which
arrived in July.

“It’s been 38 years,” he said, adding that his acceptance to the hall is “humbling.”

He said, looking back, he knew he was a good football player, but this honor is something
he never could have seen coming.

Wright moved to Nelson County in 1978. His wife, a teacher at Tye River Elementary
School whom he met at Ferrum, was from the area.

He originally is from Raleigh, N.C., where he played football and was a state-winning
wrestler for Enloe High School.While Ferrum, at the time a junior college, did not offer sports scholarships, Wright
still decided to attend the school to play the sport he loves.

He took up the positions of halfback and defensive end.

The first year he was on the team, they went 9-1. The next, they went all the way.

“I knew we had a good football team both years,” Wright said. “But that second year,
I knew we were good enough that we were going to win a national championship.”

Wright has stayed in contact with a handful of his teammates through the years and
had a good time catching up with a few others at the induction ceremony.

He said it was enjoyable “to see the guys now, at the ages they are now, and to remember
how it was when we were in college, playing football together.”

After all, he said, that was his favorite part of playing for Ferrum College: “the
camaraderie of the team, the closeness of the team.”

“We were like family,” he added.

He said the feeling they all experienced when they won the national championship in
1974 would be hard to explain.

“We had done something we could remember for the rest of our lives and look back and
tell our children and grandchildren about it,” he said.

Wright, a die-hard Washington Redskins fan, still misses playing football, “every
day,” he said, and his love of the sport runs deep.

He said the value of the game is that it helps build teamwork and camaraderie.

The players all know that their teammates have their back, he said.

“It’s just like working at the sheriff’s office here,” he said. “We look out for each
other and look out for each other’s welfare.”

Lt. Becky Adcock, of the sheriff’s office, said a lot of Wright’s coworkers know about
his recent honor.

“We’re just proud of him and glad to have him working for Nelson County,” she said.